Contact with Brian Vickers relegated Bobby Labonte to a 29th-place finish. Credit: Autostock

Bad luck bites drivers Chasing spot in top 10

LONG POND, Penn. -- Bobby Labonte knows he's on volatile ground in the Nextel Cup Series point standings. He just doesn't care.

"That's not even a concern. I don't give a (crap) about it," chuckled Labonte after crashing out of the Pennsylvania 500 on Sunday. "You're either going to be there or you're not."

VIDEO Victory Lane Johnson completes the season sweep at Pocono Raceway Heavy Damage Contact with Vickers sends B.Labonte to the garage Into the wall Stewart gets loose on the track and hits the wall on Lap 108 No Luck Jeff Burton's struggles continue as he wrecks while in the top 10 Driver Change Junior turns driving duties over to Andretti on Lap 53 The pits Joe Nemechek loses the lead on pit road

True. And right now he's solidly in. But Sunday hurt, both literally and figuratively.

Labonte was racing rookie Brian Vickers in Turn 1 on Lap 176, when Vickers slid up the track and into the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet, sending Labonte hard into the outside retaining wall rear-end first.

"Well, we were running fifth and came out of the pits 13th, not sure how, maybe I slowed down or something on pit road," Labonte said. "Then (Vickers) was a little better than I was and got a little run off of Turn 3, went down into (Turn) one, thought I gave him enough room, maybe I didn't.

"Next thing I know I was sliding backwards and into the fence. Pretty damn hard, too. I'm fine, but (the hit) was huge."

The resulting 29th-place finish dropped him from seventh to ninth in the standings, so with six qualifying racing remaining before The Chase begins, he stands 86 points ahead of 11th-place Jeremy Mayfield.

And he's not the only one who dropped Sunday.

Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick both fell victim to misfortune as well. Busch lost a transmission and Harvick a motor, dropping both drivers one position in the standings. Busch improved from ninth to sixth with last weekend's victory at New Hampshire, and appeared poised to make up more ground Sunday.

Kurt Busch says his transmission was "weird" Sunday at Pocono. Credit: Autostock

He qualified third and spent 110 laps in the top 10, but lost the transmission with eight laps to go, dropping him from sixth to seventh heading to Indianapolis.

"The transmission went and it was weird," Busch said. "I've never broke a gear to know what goes first or what happened, so it was just some bad luck."

Harvick's engine failure marked his first DNF since the fall Atlanta race in 2002. He is now 10th in the standings, 40 points ahead of Mayfield.

"For some reason the water temp just went all the way up to 270 and it just started slowing down," Harvick said. "Then we came in to try to cool it off to save it. But that's probably the best we've run here at Pocono. We'll just go on to the next one."

PENNSYLVANIA 500 •   Results •   Standings

The next one is The Brickyard, and Harvick just happens to be the defending champion.

Drivers ranked 11th thru 15th are still in position to grab one of the coveted top-10 point positions, and sixth-place Elliott Sadler thru 10th-place Harvick are separated by just 84 points. Moreover, nine of the drivers in the current top 10 changed points position in the Pennsylvania 500.

Labonte may not be paying attention to the top 10, but others are.

"If 11th has a good day, then we're in trouble," Busch said.